Re: RUBI: A Self-Sovereign Identity-Based Retroactive UBI System - Seeking Community Feedback

On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 3:16 PM <nivas.cool@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wanted to share an idea that intersects Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), decentralized governance, and Universal Basic Income (UBI): Retroactive Universal Basic Income (RUBI). I have attached a one-page explanation of the concept, breaking down the mechanics.

Hi Nivas, thank you for sharing this interesting proposal with the
group. A few thoughts below on your ask of the community (how to
engage more productively) and the concept itself.

First, and most importantly, I commend you for thinking about societal
problems and trying to propose something to fix some of the wrongs in
the world. Many of us are here because we care deeply about the things
you touch on in your proposed solution. It's coming from a good place,
so keep going -- the world needs more people like you that are trying
to fix fundamental flaws in local, national, and global society!

Your ask of the community might be too broad to get a response. I've
noticed that asking targeted, specific questions tends to get more
responses than general "What do you think about this idea?" questions,
which is what your email seems to be asking. In other words, you're
asking people to do a lot of mental energy to grasp the very large
concept and system you are presenting and then provide input on
some/all of it. There are just too many moving pieces to analyze
unless someone were to take a lot of time to sit down and think about
it... and many of us just don't have the time to do that (unless some
of us have been thinking about this problem for many years). So, you
might try to be more targeted in your questions to the group -- focus
on a very specific portion (like proof of personhood) and ask a few
very specific questions.

On to just some hot takes on your idea, I know a few of us have toyed
with UBI and SSI, so this just so happens to touch on things I've been
interested in for many decades now.

> RUBI is a framework that proposes a globally governed, open-source monetary system where:
>
> Personhood credentials (SSI-based) ensure UBI eligibility while preventing fraud.

This part is do-able and interesting. The preventing fraud thing is
key, and I don't think we have a good solution for it yet (but there
is some hope in some of the newer advanced cryptography -- namely
per-issuer/verifier pseudonyms).

Keep in mind that there is no privacy preserving system that is also
capable of fully eliminating fraud. Any proof of personhood system is
guaranteed to have fraud in it and you will just have to accept
that... it's "How much fraud are you willing to accept?" that is the
key question. The next key question is: "How is your PHC system going
to optimize for pseudonymity AND anti-fraud?"

> Democratic governance enables citizens to vote on UBI rates and demurrage policies.

Define "democratic". :) -- the form of governance matters immensely
here. Do you mean American democratic? Or Scandanavian democratic? Or
Chinese democratic? Or Indian democratic? The populations in some of
those countries make some "strange" choices according to the
populations in the other countries. It seems like you are going for a
global solution when there is no "global culture"... different
cultures and borders exist... how are you solving for that?

If you want your solution to scale, the architecture has to take into
account that there are different types of democracies, and more
importantly, different types of cultures with some of them that are
incompatible with the concept of UBI and others that will
differentiate themselves by going away from UBI. Nation states and
cultures compete with each other over long periods of time -- how is
your system resilient to that?

> Retroactive UBI ensures individuals receive compensation based on their birthdate, correcting past economic exclusion.

Sounds like you want to bankrupt entire nations. :P

Remember that many nations are barely solvent, many keep large debts
on their books, and with retroactive UBI, you're asking entire
societies to take on a huge debt without explaining how all of that is
going to be financed. This is probably the most critical part of your
proposal that I cannot reconcile, and I have to go beyond suspending
disbelief to just: "He will eventually figure out that there is no way
that retroactive UBI can work from an economic perspective." -- I'd
love to be proved wrong there, do you have links to any research in
this area with positive outcomes?

Most every nation that has considered "reparations" for past
grievances has only agreed to them if they were defeated militarily
(reparations being imposed on a defeated nation) or the population
receiving the reparation was so small that the financial burden could
be absorbed by the nation's workforce.

In other words, people who have liquid assets (money) don't like
giving those assets to other people unless there is a good argument
for doing so. If forced to do so, by the larger population, they just
move the asset to somewhere else that doesn't fall under the rules
that say they have to hand the asset over. You will see wealth (and
innovation) fleeing to whatever nation you want to impose your RUBI
thing in... or it will be transformed into something that RUBI can't
be applied to (such as physical assets)... and then to fix that, we
venture into government seizure of assets "for the good of the
people", which has a long and sordid history. I'll stop there, there's
a lot written about this in the history books.

What you might try, instead, is to focus on societies where there is a
sort of UBI already in place -- Alaska's Permanent Fund, Saudi
Arabia's Citizen Account Program, Finland's UBI experiment, Spain's
UBI program, Kenya, Norway, etc.

I'd say this is the most distracting part of your proposal, that might
cause people to not respond to the email.

> Interoperable and competing digital currencies operate with open-source governance to prevent speculation.

Another herculean task... seeing as how just about every currency in
the world, including all the new blockchain based currencies, have no
escaped currency speculation... what are you going to do that's
different here?

> I would love to hear your thoughts on any aspect of this concept, whether from a technical, governance, economic, or interoperability perspective.
>
> The feasibility of integrating SSI-based personhood verification into such a system.

Feasible.

> Political possibilities of making such a system come to reality.

Next to zero possibility for your current proposal. You are trying to
solve three of the hardest problems of the last several hundred years
simultaneously.

Props for shooting for the stars, but you have to figure out a way to
propose something that is scalable from something small to something
big. How are you going to hit scale with your proposal?

> Design considerations for privacy.

The PHC thing is probably the only place that privacy comes in -- how
are you going to combat sybils in the system?

> Potential alignment with existing decentralized identity frameworks or monetary governance models.

DIDs and VCs can play a part in what you're trying to do, but your
biggest issue isn't the technology... it's the fundamental economic
and governance problems you're trying to tackle.

> Broader implications and challenges of a retroactive UBI approach within a decentralized ecosystem.

I've highlighted some of these above, and I hope it's not
discouraging. Keep at it, we'll try to help as much as we can. The
hardest problems you're trying to address aren't technological in
nature, they're related to governance and economics -- but that's just
another form of engineering; social engineering, and there can be a
strong connection between technological engineering and social
engineering.

I hope that provides some of the feedback that you were hoping for
Nivas. Don't be discouraged by it, as I said, you are trying to solve
very important societal problems and that is commendable. :)

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
https://www.digitalbazaar.com/

Received on Friday, 21 March 2025 13:56:35 UTC